A century ago, the Immortal Way flourished, while the Way of Letters was extinguished. An edict banning literature set every book in the land ablaze, and scholars and poets were condemned as criminals. Shen Mo, the illegitimate son of the Shen family in Qingshi Town, was born with severed meridians and a blocked dantian. Cast aside by his family, he spent ten years doing menial work in the library. Then, one night, a drop of blood seeped into the title page of a crumbling stone book. The River Luo Book of Ink awakened, and the ancient Way of Letters returned to the world. “Turn words into weapons, poetry into spells, and history into a mirror. Write books and establish your teachings: a single character can subdue mountains and rivers.” From then on, the good-for-nothing youth took up his brush and sought the Way. His family mistreated him, and he advanced one step at a time. His sect humiliated him, and he made a name for himself through ink. The Immortal Way suppressed the Way of Letters, so he raised his brush and challenged the heavens: Why should this world allow only immortal cultivators to seek eternal life, while denying scholars the right to forge their own destinies?
